Heritage Matters

The focus of our Minister, Kris Hanna's address last Sunday, to a full church at Shady Grove was to briefly span the history of theistic belief from early pantheism to monotheism and beyond. It included Unitarianism and Trinitarian mainstream (Christian) dogma. Kris observed at the outset, a trend in contemporary society and amongst Unitarians - towards greater abstraction in defining notions of God and Divinity, evolving from Jewish monotheism into the Orthodoxy of a Trinitarian, tripartite God - the Father, Jeshua - his Son and Holy Spirit. There were "unitarian" dissenters. Alexandrian (monotheistic) scholars argued against the Trinitarianism of Athanasius. They included the Egyptian scholars, Origen and Arius. There were achievements: the Unitarian, Francis Dávid (1510–1579 influenced King Sigismund to issue the Edict of Torda in Transylvania, Socinus (1539–1604), and the Socinian movement in Italy, the Racovian Catechism of Poland, and there were those who died for their Unitarian beliefs - Michael Servetus (Spain), burned at the stake with his book on the Errors of the Trinity in Switzerland, the Englishman, John Biddell (1615-1662) who died in prison for his Unitarian beliefs after being imprisoned from 1647-1662, the Quaker, James Naylor, tortured and imprisoned for blasphemy, the scientist and former priest, Joseph Priestley - forced to flee to America - and other Unitarians, persecuted, tortured and martyred for their beliefs. 
Many "post-Christian" Unitarians now seek to define "Unitarian" not historically and narrowly, as anti-Trinitarian - but the discovery of a unity and "oneness" that transcends old, worn-out dogma that divides, that gathers up new and old wisdom that has stood the test of time to unite us in our shared humanity, a Universalism where salvation is to be found here and now in the quality of our daily living and loving. But that's the sequel - to be told by others at another time. Listen now to Kris's account of how we Unitarians came to be here and, by inference - where we might be heading.